Issue Four : Fall 2016

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Over the past two decades, river management has added a new approach to the “toolbox” of efforts to undo some of the damage caused by earlier generations of river interventions. Humans have intervened in river flows for millennia, damming water courses and creating levees to shape river flows, all in the name of providing expanded benefits from managed river flows. But things have changed recently.

The Lower Minnesota River, from Carver Rapids to the confluence with the Mississippi, is a low-gradient, broad reach of the river. If you wade into the brown water you may be surprised to find that the bottom is actually sandy…

The images here show three configurations of Minneapolis’ Upper Harbor Terminal landscape across a century. Together, these images demonstrate the temporal layering of a physical and social landscape, highlighting changes over time; my analysis aims to illuminate how these changes emerge at the intersection of humans and nonhumans, and point us toward an alternative perception and ethic of co-creating the world.

For as long as people have been living with rivers, we have been changing them. Put up a levee to keep water away from where we don’t want it. Build a canal to move water to where we do want it. Put up a dam to stop floods or generate water power. Over millennia, the possibilities have been endless.

Owámniyomni, a Dakota name for “St. Anthony Falls,” means turbulent water, whirlpool, eddy. To Dakota people the Mississippi River has a few names, one is ȟaȟáwakpá – the river of the falls, a name that reveals the importance of the waterfall.

A major piece of Twin Cities news in summer 2015 was the closure of the St. Anthony Falls Lock on the Upper Mississippi. This garnered a lot of attention, and raised many questions from the community. At the time, I was taking a full-time summer course load, and was more worried about drowning in my chemistry and philosophy homework than about local river news.

Our second issue included a feature article which describes a case of river management in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd where water was let out of the Tar River Reservoir, relieving pressure on the city of Rocky Mount and dumping more water …

The Mississippi River is a story of interventions. Throughout history, people have relied on the river for water, food, transportation, energy, and recreation. The desire to maximize these ecological services has played out as a series of human interventions …

The 2013 Hispanic Issues On Line volume, Troubled Waters: Rivers in Latin American Imagination, is a collection of essays that underscores an intellectual turn in Hispanic and Lusophone Studies toward the environment, and more specifically, the material, metaphysical, and literary “nature” emblematic of rivers that flow south of the Río Grande.

Issue Contents

For as long as people have been living with rivers, we have been changing them. Put up a levee to keep water away from where we don't want it. Build a canal to move water to where we do want it. Put up a dam to stop floods or generate water power. Over millennia, the possibilities have been endless.

The Mississippi River is a story of interventions. Throughout history, people have relied on the river for water, food, transportation, energy, and recreation. The desire to maximize these ecological services has played out as a series of human interventions ...

The Lower Minnesota River, from Carver Rapids to the confluence with the Mississippi, is a low-gradient, broad reach of the river. If you wade into the brown water you may be surprised to find that the bottom is actually sandy...

Our second issue included a feature article which describes a case of river management in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd where water was let out of the Tar River Reservoir, relieving pressure on the city of Rocky Mount and dumping more water ...

Owámniyomni, a Dakota name for “St. Anthony Falls,” means turbulent water, whirlpool, eddy. To Dakota people the Mississippi River has a few names, one is ȟaȟáwakpá – the river of the falls, a name that reveals the importance of the waterfall.

The 2013 Hispanic Issues On Line volume, Troubled Waters: Rivers in Latin American Imagination, is a collection of essays that underscores an intellectual turn in Hispanic and Lusophone Studies toward the environment, and more specifically, the material, metaphysical, and literary “nature” emblematic of rivers that flow south of the Río Grande.

A major piece of Twin Cities news in summer 2015 was the closure of the St. Anthony Falls Lock on the Upper Mississippi. This garnered a lot of attention, and raised many questions from the community. At the time, I was taking a full-time summer course load, and was more worried about drowning in my chemistry and philosophy homework than about local river news.

The images here show three configurations of Minneapolis' Upper Harbor Terminal landscape across a century. Together, these images demonstrate the temporal layering of a physical and social landscape, highlighting changes over time; my analysis aims to illuminate how these changes emerge at the intersection of humans and nonhumans, and point us toward an alternative perception and ethic of co-creating the world.

Over the past two decades, river management has added a new approach to the “toolbox” of efforts to undo some of the damage caused by earlier generations of river interventions. Humans have intervened in river flows for millennia, damming water courses and creating levees to shape river flows, all in the name of providing expanded benefits from managed river flows. But things have changed recently.

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